


Socks

by cofax



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s01e02 Children of the Gods, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-13
Updated: 2010-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Samantha Carter, just after the pilot.  Posted May 2004.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Socks

Her feet hurt.

Correction: her entire body hurts. Sam pulls off her t-shirt and turns in front of the   
mirror: there are red marks, rapidly purpling, in the flesh over her hip bones. Irritated   
stripes mark her shoulders where the pack straps rested. She knows when she takes off   
her pants that there will be bruises on her knees, abrasions from being knocked around by   
the guards. She has been told she suffered no permanent or serious injury: just cuts,   
bruises, strains. It still hurts.

But her feet hurt most of all.

The BOQ at the Academy has spare but clean furnishings. She sits on the bed and flops   
over backwards onto the coverlet, too exhausted even to untie her shoes. It was so hard   
to make herself put them on in the locker room, but an Air Force captain can't wander   
around a top-secret installation in stocking feet. Even if all she's doing is taking an   
elevator 28 stories to the surface and walking into the parking garage.

An Air Force captain is fit, strong, always ready for duty. Five times a week, Sam runs   
five miles. She lifts weights, stretches, takes the occasional aerobics class. She can   
defend herself hand-to-hand and with a wide array of weapons.

But Samantha Carter is also a scientist, and she spends most of her time on the computer.   
The week before Colonel O'Neill led them through the gate is a blur: running model after   
model, sleeping on the floor in her lab, living on coffee and bad canteen sandwiches. She   
was tired when the mission began, and she hasn't been in the field on a regular basis since   
before she began her doctoral research. When she was at the Pentagon, getting out of the   
office meant flying to Cheyenne Mountain to run simulations, not hiking fifteen miles   
through enemy territory with a forty-pound pack on her back.

The sound of a lawnmower grinds through the window, and she sits up reluctantly. The   
laces on her left shoe are loose: she pulls it off and drops it to the floor. But she'd double-  
knotted her right shoe and it takes a bleary thirty seconds to work the knot apart. She lets   
the shoe fall and strips off her socks.

The race to the Stargate from the prison was harrowing: herding the refugees along,   
watching for more of the snake-headed guards, dodging shots from those evil ships   
zipping along overhead. It was only a few miles, but they hadn't exactly gotten a lot of   
rest while they were captives, and it was unfamiliar territory. Once she even found   
herself thankful she didn't have to carry the extra weight of her weapon, and she blushes   
at the memory now.

The skin on her feet is mottled. A purple bruise is spreading where someone stepped on   
her during the last mad dash to the gate. Blisters the size of quarters bloom on her heels,   
and even across the tops of her toes.

She has two days before she has to report back to the Mountain. Sam sighs and pushes   
herself to her feet, wincing at the feel of the carpet on the raw and tender skin. Her needs   
are few, she decides. Today, she'll take a bath and draw up a new exercise schedule.

Tomorrow, she'll buy new socks.


End file.
